President’s Message – April 2017

I hope everyone is off to a busy and productive spring season. For the Great Rivers Chapter, it has been a busy 2017 and we’re looking forward to what the rest of the years!

As you may have noticed, IECA has launched a service of providing stormwater related news articles via email. This news service is called IECA SmartBrief and is a complimentary weekly e-mail newsletter that is specifically aimed at bringing you with information to help keep you up-to-date with the latest news and trends in our industry. News stories are selected from thousands of news sites, blogs, and other sources, and then summarized and linked to the original sources for further reading.

Environmental Connection 17 was held this past February in Atlanta, GA. As always the conference and trade show brought together colleagues from around the world to learn about the latest stormwater and erosion control topics and products. While the trade show is always an exciting part of the conference, the educational sessions that were provided were excellent. The sessions were full (many with standing room only) and the topics were fresh and exciting.

As for the Great Rivers Chapter, we hosted our annual chapter meeting, where we reached out to the attendees from the our four state region to get together for an hour meet each other and just chat about the state of the industry in our area. Our meeting was scheduled for an hour, but we continued visiting for nearly two hours before calling an end to it. Environmental Connection 2018 is scheduled for Long Beach, CA and I highly recommend making the effort to attend.

Also at EC17, the Great Rivers Chapter, along with the Great Lakes Chapter, received awards for Outstanding Innovative Education. The award was given for the two Chapters efforts to collaborate in putting together the Great Connections Conference in La Crosse, WI in July 2016. Discussions are currently underway for the two Chapters to consider hosting another Great Connections in 2018.

And finally, planning is now underway for our Great Rivers Chapter’s fall conference. If you have ideas for speakers, venues or anything to help make the conference a success, feel free to contact me or any of our Great Rivers Chapter board members.